Introducing...

Josephine Noelle Cancro

She's finally here! On December 27th, 2010, Josephine Noelle Cancro arrived weighing in at 8 pounds 12 ounces and was 21.25 inches long. Born at 8:06 am. Mommy and Daddy were thrilled not to mention several sets of grandparents and aunts and uncles. It took Ava some time but she has definitely come around.

Josephine, or "Josie" as she's called in our house, is named after Chris' paternal grandfather, Coachie or otherwise known at Joseph George Cancro. Coachie passed away last March and we miss him terribly. He would have been thrilled with another grand daughter. Josie has been a great addition to our family. From the start, she's been a rabid nurser and a pretty decent sleeper. I am recovering from my c-section really well. There is a fine line between recovering and doing too much. I think I've finally found a way to tread it carefully. Because Josie is pretty much a pirahna when it comes to eating, I've managed to get to my pre-baby weight in 3 weeks, despite a pretty serious Oreo and See's Candy habit.


Chris was able to take a paternity month and only worked half days in the clinic. It was nice to have all that help but he's now back to full time. Ava has done fairly well adjusting to having more of daddy and less of mommy. When she does act out, it's towards Chris and me and not the baby. In fact, she loves to "pet" the baby, get her diapers, tuck her in with blankies and shove the pacifier in her mouth. The other day we had a mommy/Ava date and she just kept looking at the empty car seat and saying, "I miss Baby Josie. I miss Baby Josie." Yes, I think we're going to be fine.


Enjoy the pictures...I will try to be better about this blog business. No promises, though. Two kids are exhausting!!

Deja vu? Here we are again!

Another big baby Cancro girl!

My little love.

Ava meeting her little sister. She was pretty leary.

A very proud Aunt January Grandma Patti and Pop Pop

Grammy Jenna and her girls in matching jammies

Well, hello cutie!

Gazing off into space...favorite pastime

With my two favorite girls in the world.

6 months in 6 pictures

So...yeah...same old story. Pathetically late in updating the blog. What can I say, I was pregnant and chose to sleep instead of blog. Sue me. :) I will try to bring you all up to date in one paragraph and six pictures. Think it's possible?


We has a blessedly long summer/fall that enabled us to play outside - WITHOUT COATS! - until mid-november. Every day, Ava and I walked to the park, chased grasshoppers or went to the outdoor pool. We celebrated Ava's birthday at the end of summer and also made a quick trip to Glendive to see Sarah and Nora. Plus, we went to the fair which was a huge hit too. Mid fall, we got a horrible cold that kicked our butts for two straight weeks. Who knew a cold could knock you flat like that?! Ava got a solid foundation in Disney movies during that time and is now addicted to them...especially the princesses. Sigh... Anyway, before the princesses came about, her first love was Robin Hood. Halloween was just about to arrive so we all dressed up. Chris was Little John, I was Maid Marion and Ava was Robin Hood. We had a blast trick or treating. We also enjoyed some easy hiking, the farmers market, and pumpkin picking. Christmas season quickly approached and this year we cut our own tree in Red Lodge and had fun getting ready for Santa to come as well as Baby Josie. I will get to that in my next post. In the meantime, enjoy the pictures.

DISCLAIMER: These are obviously not in any particular order. That would take too much time.

Ava and Daddy making a ginger bread house. No kit for the Cancros!

Chris and Ava posing with our Charlie Brown Christmas tree

Making homemade pasta with Great Grandma Ruth

Posing in her new pretty dress.

Ava also spent two months in gymnastics. She loved it!

Posing with Mommy in front of the Christmas tree.

The Sherwood Forest Family: Maid Marion, Robin Hood and Little John

Helping Grammy Jenna with the leaves

Hiking with Daddy on Rock Creek

Pretty little angel

2 years!

People warn you about this...your kid growing so fast you can hardly believe it. It made sense to me on an intellectual level but I had to experience it first hand to truly appreciate what they were saying. Ava turned two on August 16th. Of course, she's looked like a two year old for about 9 months and started acting like a two year old about 5 months ago. :) Anyway, here is a year in review.

August 2009 - SLC Spray Park

September 2009 - Hamming it up at home.
October 2009 - Grammy's house.

November 2009 - with her best buddy, Bunny.

December 2009 - Checking out her singing penguin, Frank.

January 2010 - Sitting on her throne of blocks.

February 2010 - "Cheers! Ahhh!"

March 2010 - St. Patty's Day Parade

April 2010 - Eating Spaghetti.

May 2010 - Spring Chick

June 2010 - Party Girl.

July 2010 - Pretty in Pink.

August 2010 - Birthday Party!!

The Big News

Hey fun friends and family...

...as always, I have a lot to catch up on. I'll try to do this is chronological order. First and foremost, we are expecting baby #2 right after Christmas. Yeah, it's old news by now but some of you might not know. We are pretty excited about this. The first month was a little crazy with a scare or two but now I'm safely half way. 20 weeks to be exact. Despite some infrequent nausea, the only real symptom I had was fatigue. Holy cow, I was tired. All the time. No, seriously, ALL the time. Now, I'm past all the crushing fatigue and just kind of tired. Oh, yeah...we're having a girl, by the way. Very excited about this. I say we're not done yet (keep trying for a boy) but Chris only says, "We'll see."

20 weeks

Ava doesn't really get it yet. We keep telling her she's getting a baby for Christmas. I also point to my belly and tell her there is a baby there. She then points to my belly and says, "baby out! baby out!" I guess she thinks the poor little thing is uncomfortable. :) Very cute.

Next...we went to Boston and NY for a week in May. It was great. The weather was pretty decent and we saw a lot of friends. We stayed with Peter, Sarah and Nora. It was fun to see the girls together playing and tearing up Sarah's house. We spent a day in Boston and then went to church at CTK on Sunday. Ava could not get enough of all the fun kids. It was crazy and of course made me miss our old church more than ever. Probably the highlight of the trip for Ava was to ride a city bus back to Sarah's house. She was screaming at the top of her lungs, "BUS! BUS!" the entire 30 minutes we were on there. Cute...at first...

Ava and Nora playing...probably getting into trouble. Look at those faces!

Sarah, Me and Nicky. Two of my very dearest friends.

Next, we were home for about two weeks or so. We filled every weekend with trips to Powell. We planted an enormous garden at my parents and put a fence around it that resembles Fort Knox. We all had huge hopes...unfortunately, the weather and some errant chemical has dashed our hopes. Long gone are my dreams of a Hidden Valley Ranch garden.

Unfortunately, it's late August and it still looks a lot like this! :(

Next, we had Austin and Maia in for a week. These are Chris' cousins' kids. They are great. Ava loved having non-stop attention. We put about 750 miles on the car with trips to Chico Hot Springs, Yellowstone, East Rosebud Lake and Cody. Lots of fun but too much driving.

At the end of long hike in Yellowstone

As soon as we dropped the kids off at the airport, it was down to Powell - AGAIN - for a family reunion/Grandma's 80th birthday. Lots of fun and even more little crazy cousins running around. After 3 days I was completely worn out and had to escape to Billings to rest.

All but two of my Grandma Rich's great grandkids!

The female Rich cousins.

Finally, in Ava news...the little turkey has learned to escape her crib. I woke up about two months ago to her staring at me an inch away from my face. Needless to say, we bought a twin bed and bedding that morning. She got her birthday present early. She is VERY excited about her bed. She is so proud.

Ava's big girl bed. (Now we have bedding too)

...the same day she started climing out of her bed, I found a huge red angry bump in her groin area. It looked exactly like an inguinal hernia (courtesy of google images). I freaked and called Chris in the ER - ironically, it was his first night of his ER rotation. He talked to the main doc at St. Vincents and they said we should bring her in. Three consults and five hours later, they determined it was not a hernia but extreme cellulitis caused by an infection. Went on some hefty antibiotics and was sent home. I am just so relieved she didn't have to have emergency surgery because that is what it was looking like for a while there. We then followed up with her pediatrician who changed antibiotics and gave us the go-ahead for our annual trip to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. "It should be almost gone by then." Well, kids, it wasn't. It got bigger, redder and harder. Then it got a little squishy. We freaked, called out pediatrician in MT and he told us to take her to the Children's hospital in Norfolk, VA. We left a day early and took her to the Children's hospital ER and they said it was definitely an abcess, we would have to sedate and drain. Poor little Ava had to get an ultrasound which ultimately showed there wasn't any puss yet. So next day we were off to MT...we waited until Monday to go to the pediatrician and he decided to drain the abcess. Well, we held her down and he sliced her open (you think your child getting shots is bad, hold her down while they slice her with a scalpel!!) Nothing. Just fatty tissue. Next step was a surgery consult because there were too many "structures" underneath her lump: ovary, lymph node and a major artery. So, two days later, we see a surgeon who says that since it has started to go away, we wouldn't need surgery. Thankfully, the 3RD! antibiotic they put her on in Virginia started working. Fast-forward...it's all gone now and she has a small scar. Lots of worry but ultimately it's all good now.

(I'd post a picture of this thing but it was on her groin and I don't need nudie photos of Ava floating around the internet. Trust me, though, it was SCARY. It looked like an avocado was shoved underneath her skin.)

Next...our last vacation for a year. Our 9th year at the Outer Banks. Lots of Cancro craziness. Despite getting no sleep and being stressed out due to her bump, it was fun. We spent lots of good time with the Cancros and Ava received a lot of love from all the cousins.

Ava and Chris at Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

I'll post a new blog soon all about Ava's 2nd birthday and lots of pictures. Sorry this one is...oh...4 months late!

XOXO,

Kristy

And we're off!

So much has happened lately that I'm afraid this will be an annoyingly long post. I'll try to be succinct for once.

Mid-march...Chris' grandfather, Coachie, passed away. We made made an immediate trip to NY for the funeral. It was great to see all the family again despite the sad circumstances. We met a lot of the extended Cancro family and many family friends. Coachie was an incredible person - a true example of how to live your life. Although we'll miss him terribly, he is with Marion now.

Ava, Georgie Z, Violet and me.

All the Cancro Cousins (this was the serious pose)

Rest in Peace, Coachie

When we got back, Easter was right around the corner. Chris had 5 days off so we went down to my parents' house for the holidays. It was fun to just relax and not do too much. Ava went nuts down there. My parents have a huge yard. She spent hours going for walks around their yard, throwing rocks, dragging around pieces of rope, watching the cows and chasing the cats and dog. We did do an Easter egg hunt with a couple of cousins and it was fun.

Pointing out some eggs.

Showing off their candy.

Feeding cows with Daddy.

Then, about two weeks later, Ava and I went down to Denver to help my Aunt watch her 3 grandchildren (ages 7, 5, and 3). Their parents ran a marathon in Austria and have spent the last two weeks traveling around Europe. Fortunately, these kids are incredibly sweet and well-behaved. They loved playing with Ava and she loved having "siblings" for two weeks. I'm afraid that she will be bored now that we are home. Chris was able to find a super cheap ticket and flew down one weekend. Plus, Aunt January came down from the mountains each weekend we were there. It was a fun trip filled with trips to the park, zoo, mall, and playgrounds. Not to mention lots of homework, reading, cooking, laundry and peacemaking (they are kids after all...) We just got home yesterday. It's nice to be home. But I do miss those little rugrats already.

Snuggling with Aunt January right before bedtime.

At the zoo.

Playing at the pool when Daddy visited.

Watching cartoons with Nick.

Playing on the slide.

We're going to lay low this weekend and then we're off to Boston/NY next week. This is a trip that was planned a while ago. SOMEBODY forgot to get his vacation request in on time so we cannot go to our 10th college reunion over Memorial Day. (I'm not bitter about this...can you tell?) Anyway, to make up for it, we are going this coming week. It should be fun to see a lot of friends that we haven't seen in several years.

Well, that's it for now.